sábado, octubre 07, 2006

La Sangrienta Dictadura Argentina (1979-80)

La Sangrienta Dictadura Argentina (Denuncia (New York), abril 1979)
por Eduardo Saguier
Para el tercer aniversario del golpe militar en la Argentina el Dr. Eduardo Saguier contribuye el siguiente escrito a las páginas de Denuncia. En él plantea las características fascistas y terroristas de la actual dictadura argentina y hace un llamado a la conformación de un amplio frente político de resistencia que devuelva el país a su curso democrático.
El Dr. Saguier es un dirigente del partido Unión Cívica Radical de la Argentina. Actualmente se encuentra en exilio voluntario en los Estados Unidos, donde se desempeña como profesor de historia en la Washington University de St. Louis, Missouri.
Los golpes de estado son un hecho familiar en la historia argentina contemporánea a diferencia de lo ocurrido en otros países como Uruguay y Chile. Todos estos golpes han obedecido a la finalidad de someter nuestra economía neocolonial al control de las corporaciones norteamericanas y la oligarquía terrateniente, lo que a su vez significa salarios de hambre y legislación social reaccionaria. El propósito principal de este plan político económico, a pesar de la política de derechos humanos de Carter, sigue sirviendo para acrecentar la acumulación capitalista, la cual es a su vez transferida a los grandes centros metropolitanos del capital financiero.
Lo que distingue a la actual dictadura argentina de la de los años anteriores son su características terrorista y fascista. Además de borrar a los partidos políticos, a las federaciones obreras y asociaciones estudiantiles, interviniendo universidades, expulsando profesores y disolviendo las carreras científicas, prohibiendo huelgas y actividades sindicales, la Junta Militar argentina ha desatado un holocausto sin paralelo en la historia contemporánea de América Latina; tanto más amplia y cruel que el terror del a Cuba Batistiana, la Dominicana de Trujillo, y el Paraguay de Stroessner. Paradójicamente la prensa de los Estados Unidos, que gasta tanto tiempo en tratar de los disidentes soviéticos, apenas menciona al drama argentino.
Pinochet fue el consejero
Todo parece indicar que el presidente Pinochet aconsejó al Presidente Videla que no cometiera los mismos errores. En vez de reprimir a los enemigos vestidos de militar, Pinochet aconsejó que lo hiciera de civil. Desde el golpe militar de marzo de 1976, en nombre de la moral y la civilización occidental y cristiana, y con la declarada intención de retornar al país a una “democracia estable moderna y capitalista”, la dictadura ha victimizado entre 15.000 y 20.000 detenidos, torturados y/o asesinados por las fuerzas del gobierno y sus escuadras paramilitares.
La realidad de la represión llega a extremos inimaginables. Hasta a los niños y los ancianos se los tortura. Se encuentran cuerpos mutilados flotando en el Río de la Plata, muchos con los estómagos abiertos para evitar que floten, o cremados temprano en la madrugada por personal especializado en los cementerios públicos. Miles de personas desaparecidas están todavía con vida, detenidas en prisiones y campos especiales (New Republic, dic.1978). Nunca antes los políticos habían tenido tanto miedo de expresar su punto de vista.
Abogados y organizadores de derechos humanos dentro del país calculan que, desde 1976, entre 20.000 y 30.000 habeas corpus han sido sometidos tratando de localizar desparecidos. Además de los grupos de madres que se han formado para protestar vigorosamente todas las semanas por sus familiares desaparecidos, otra coalición ha surgido. Se llama “Abuelas de los Presos”. Estas son las madres de unas 1.000 mujeres que fueron secuestradas mientras estaban embarazadas. Existe evidencia irrefutable que los niños que sobrevivieron el parto en la prisión son vendidos en un “mercado negro de bebés”.
La Represión no ha parado
Pero esta represión criminal no paró después de la casi total derrota de lo que la dictadura llama “subversión”. El círculo de víctimas continuó a expandirse. Primero, incluyó a todos aquellos que los militares opinaron habían cometido actos subversivos (como propagandizar huelgas). El año pasado, durante la huelga ferroviaria, un obrero que estaba piqueteando fue fusilado en la Estación Central de Buenos Aires por el Ejército. Su cuerpo se exhibió en la televisión nacional como muestra de lo que recibiría toda persona que se atreviese apoyar una huelga.
A este grupo los militares agregaron, más tarde, todos aquellos que habían apoyado inocentemente estos actos a través de imprimir materiales o alquilar casas u oficinas. Después se incluyeron aquellos que por sus profesiones, podían haberlos defendido, tales como los abogados. Y finalmente se sumaron los amigos y colegas de los que tenían esos contactos. En esta represión criminal hasta personas que tienen el mismo apellido son secuestradas.
Pero para la dictadura militar, la denuncia de crímenes políticos cometidos en Argentina es percibido como parte de una campaña internacional contra el país, apoyada por marxistas infiltrados en el Vaticano, en los partidos social-demócratas europeos y hasta en el Departamento de Estado norteamericano. Por supuesto esperan remover este sector opositor una vez que el Presidente Carter sea derrotado electoralmente. En ese sentido Videla y Pinochet presionan fuertemente en Washington, en alianza con Stroessner y Somoza.
Los militares que detentan el poder en la Argentina tercermundista admiten ellos mismos que están luchando en lo que llaman una “sucia Tercera Guerra Mundial” contra delincuentes ideológicos y prácticos. Delincuentes prácticos son considerados los guerrilleros, los miembros de partidos políticos, activistas sindicales y estudiantiles. Para ser un delegado sindical en la Argentina uno necesita un certificado de buena conducta emitido por la Policía Federal. Delincuentes ideológicos son, en cambio, artistas, científicos, periodistas, curas tercermundistas, y hasta Testigos de Jehová.
Los Estados Unidos y muchos otros países de Europa Occidental han cesado su ayuda militar a varias dictaduras latinoamericanas por la política represiva que éstas ejercen. En consecuencia, las fascistizadas clases dominantes de Argentina y Chile, en alianza con las corporaciones multinacionales de la industria bélica, han estado implementando un supuesto conflicto fronterizo para justificar el gasto de inmensas porciones de sus exhaustos presupuestos en el rearmamento de sus burocracias terroristas. Una vez cumplido este objetivo han decidido ayudar a sus socios menos afortunados de esa cadena de horror y muerte en que se ha convertido América Latina. Por ejemplo., la Argentina ha reexportado recientemente armamento militar, comprado a países occidentales para luchar contra los chilenos, a la dictadura represiva de Somoza (Denuncia, dic.1978). Igualmente, la dictadura argentina ha tenido charlas con el gobierno de Pretoria dirigidas a establecer una organización para la defensa del Atlántico Sur y asentar la emigración de la burguesía blanca Rhodsiana en la Argentina con la excusa de “la transferencia de tecnología a través de la migración (Lernoux, The Nation, set.1978).
Un Vocabulario Nuevo
Para descubrir exactamente que es lo que quieren estas dictaduras fascistas tenemos que entender un vocabulario extraño. Videla llama “democracia moderna y estable” a lo que Pinochet bautizó como “democracia autoritaria”. La vinculación entre ambos términos es que el papel de las Fuerzas Armadas es garantizado y perpetuado. En la Argentina, a diferencia de Chile o Uruguay, un proceso político “abierto a todos los sectores excepto los terroristas y los corruptos” fue prometido por la dictadura desde un principio sin haberse cumplido nunca. Por supuesto los militares terroristas son los únicos que pueden juzgar quién es terrorista y corrupto. De hecho, el ministro de Economía Martínez de Hoz, máximo representante de la oligarquía, admitió en la conferencia del Fondo Monetario Internacional en San Francisco que, antes del golpe militar, hombres de negocios habían financiado organizaciones terroristas de ultraderecha. Esto habla por si solo, o como decimos nosotros “a confesión de parte relevo de prueba”. ¿Quién, entonces, bajo esta “nueva democracia moderna” está calificado para decidir quien no es corrupto ni terrorista?
A la luz de la trágica situación del pueblo argentino, yo como representante del partido Unión Cívica Radical argentino, en exilio voluntario, le pido a mis compatriotas y a los ciudadanos de otros países latinoamericanos en el exterior, que unan sus fuerzas para organizar un amplio frente político de resistencia, y demando de los pueblos –amantes de la paz, la libertad y el derecho humano—la solidaridad de luchar donde sea que estén y de cualquier posición que puedan detentar, contra la dictadura fascista Argentina y sus aliados internacionales hasta su derrota final.
Fuente: Denuncia (New York), abril 1979.
Argentina´s bloody dictatorship (leído en un Congreso Internacional de DDHH celebrado con el auspicio de la American Civil Liberties Union en St. Louis, Missouri, en el mes de enero de 1979, y posteriormente publicado en Minnesota Daily, vol.80, n. 137 y 138, Wednesday March 28, and Thursday March 29, 1979; y en Student Life (St. Louis, Missouri), Friday February 9, 1979, page 7).
by Eduardo Saguier
In the twentieth century history of Argentina, unlike that of Uruguay or Chile, military coup d´etats have been a common fact. All of them obeyed to a higher or lesser degree the goal of resorting the control of their neo-colonial economies to the North American corporations, and the landowning oligarchies, which meant reinstating starvation wages and reactionary social legislation. The sole purpose of this economic policy, despite Carter´s weak human rights policies, serves to increase the rate of capital accumulation which then is transferred to the metropolitan headquarters.
What distinguished today´s Argentine dictatorship from those that preceded it is its fascist and terrorist features. Besides wiping out political parties, labor federations and student associations, intervening universities, firing professors and dissolving scientific careers, forbidding strikes and union activities, the Argentine military Junta has unleased a holocaust unmatched in the twentieth century history of Latin America, dwarfing in scope and cruelty the terror of Batista´s Cuba, Trujillo´s Dominican Republic or Stroessner´s Paraguay. Paradoxically, the mass media of the U.S.Ñ that consumes such amount of energies in finding out Soviet dissidents, hardly mentions Argentina´s drama.
For what a lot of Argentines have heard, among political circles is that Pinochet advised Videla not to commit his own mistakes. Instead of repressing political enemies i8n military uniforms Pinochet told Videla to do it whithout them. Since the military takeover on March 1976, in the name of morality and Western Christian Civilization and with the stated ultimate goal of returning the nation to a stable modern capitalist democracy”, between 15,000 and 20,000 people have been jailed, tortured and/or murdered by government forces and paramilitary squads.
Reality goes far beyond imagination. Even the elderly and the children are tortured. The mutilated bodies of those that happened to be abducted have been dumped in the River Plate after opening their stomachs to avoid floating, or cremated late at night by special personnel at public cemeteries. Thousands more disappeared people are still alive, held somewhere in prisons and special detention camps (New Republic, Dec.1978) Former Bolivian President Juan José Torres and two Uruguayan Senators, Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, were kidnapped and killed in downtown Buenos Aires during the daytime, by the military. Two Argentine deputies of the Radical Civic Union party, Mario Amaya and Angel Pisarello, were murdered while in prison. The Argentine ambassador to Venezuela during this same military regime, Dr. Héctor Hidalgo Solá, was kidnapped and killed while visiting his daughter in Buenos Aires as a result of a naïve speech he gave in Caracas announcing future free elections.
Politicians of all sorts are as never before afraid to express their own views. Even Social Democratic leaders have been treated inhumanely. For example, the old head of the Radical Civic Union Party. Dr. Ricardo Balbin, was twice in one year violently put in prison after having to put his hands behind his neck and suffer the humiliation of being personally searched for weapons during an informal lunch.
Lawyers and human-rights organizations within the country estimate that, since 1976, between 20,000 and 30,000 writs of habeas corpus have been filed in efforts to locate missing persons. Besides the group pf mothers who have come together to boldly protest every week in the downtown plaza of Buenos Aires to petition authorities for information about the disappearances, another coalition has now publicly emerged. It calls itself “Grandmothers of Prisoners”. These are mothers of about 1000 women who were kidnapped while pregnant. There is confirmed evidence that those children who survived prison birth are being sold in a sort of a baby black market.
But this criminal repression did not stop after what the dictatorship calls “subversion” was almost completely defeated. The circle of victims continued to expand. First, it was those that military-men believed to have committed what they called subversive acts (like propagandizing strikes). Last year, during a railway strike a member of a picket line was shot to death in the Central Station of the Army. His body was shown on national TV as the fate to be received by anyone daring to support the strike. Then it was those thought to have innocently supported these acts by means like printing literate material or renting offices or houses; then it was those who, by reason of their professions, might have defended them, such as lawyers; then it was the friends and colleagues of those who had such contact, and so on. In this criminal repression even people who happened to have the same name used to be kidnapped.
But for the military dictatorship, the denunciation of political crimes committed in Argentina is perceived as being part of an international terrorist campaign against the country, supported by Marxists” who have infiltrated the Vatican State, the European Social Democratic parties and even the American State Department (such as Patrice Derian and Andrew Young). Of course, they expect to remove this unfriendly wave once President Carter is electorally defeated. In that sense, Videla and Pinochet´s lobbies in alliance with Stroessner and Somoza´s lobbies are working hard in Washington. For the military junta political prisoners are categorized as “common delinquents”. That is why the military junta becomes furious any time foreign newspapers react to violation of human rights in Argentina, because they claim that today in Argentina there are no political prisoners. Of course, for the military junta, the human rights of “common delinquents” do not count. Deviancy like homosexuality, prostitution and drug addiction is considered a common crime and as such they are treated. That was the case of 60 drug addicts and homosexuals who were killed while protesting against tour of inspections and beatings in Villa Devoto´s Prison last May.
These reactions, according to former senator and Radical Civic Union leader inn exile Hipólito Solari Yrigoyen, offend the national independence” to perform kidnappings, tortures and killings (Le Monde Diplomatique, Dec.1978). In order to counteract these denunciations the military junta contracted the service of a very well known American public relations firm Burston Marsteller. The latter advised the government to go ahead with the last World Soccer Championship and try to benefit from it as Hitler did with the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin.
Requiring this kind of international academic agreements by North American institutions with countries governed by fascist dictatorships should not surprise.
The military men in power in Third World Argentina admit themselves that they are fighting what they call a “dirty Third World War” against practical and ideological delinquents. Practical delinquents are considered the guerrilla men, the members of political parties, and union and student activists. To be a union representative in Argentina one needs a good behavior certificate issued by the Federal Police. Ideological delinquents are instead artists, scientists, journalists, Third World Catholic priests, and last but not least, Jehova Witnesses. Forty-five of them are still in prison. Last year two French nuns were abducted and murdered for having helped the families of the disappeared. The military government is convinced, that by assuming the burden of this dirty crusade it is doing Western Civilization a great favor.
Because of the repressive policies of Latin American dictatorships, the United States and Western European governments have banned many Third World co9untries from receiving credits of any sort to buy military equipment. Consequently both fascistized ruling classes of Argentina and Chile in alliance with the multinational war industry corporations, some of which have headquarters in St. Louis, have been implementing an assumed border conflict in order to justify spending enormous portions of their exhausted budgets to rearm their terroristic bureaucracies. Once they accomplished their rearm purposes they have decided to help their most unlucky partners in that chain of horror and death that has become Latin America. As a proof of this accusation of the existence of an international “weapons clearing” network among fascist dictatorships, Argentina has very recently re-exported military equipment bought in Western countries to fight the Chileans, to the repressive Somoza dictatorship. (Denuncia, December 1978, p.10) Similarly, the Argentine dictatorship has held talks with the Pretoria (South African) government regarding the establishment of a South Atlantic defense organization and the resettlement of the newly emigrated white Rhodesian bourgeoisie in what they euphemistically entitled a “transfer of technology through migration” (Lernoux, The Nation, Sept.1978).
But to move backward the wheels of history without being challenged, the military dictatorship had to ban not only essential freedoms but also free thinking. As Noam Chomsky has stated, freedom is always a threat to the commissars. Security forces have have extended their admitted “dirty Third World War” against what they called “ideological delinquents” Among them were the professions of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis, professions which are considered fundamentally subversive. Then came the disciplines like sociology, anthropology and history. And last but not least came the “new math” which is suspected of being subversive because it allegedly emphasizes relatives over absolutes and questions the validity of the formal logic (La Nación, Nov.26 of 1978).
Academic and cultural life in general have been destroyed in Argentina. Totally innocuous books and artists are banned. Vargas Llosa, García Márquez and Cortazar´s books were forceably put out of circulation, and theoretical discussion in humanities courses is considered dangerous. The School of Philosophy of the University of Buenos Aires placed Henry Wallon, Erick Fromm and Jean Piaget on its black list as Freudian and Marxist (The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 1978). Because of the poverty overcoming the lower classes, the primary school rate is now 50 percent—something previously unheard of in Argentina.
Half a million Argentines have left their country since the coup, most of them professionals and technicians. Anyone involved in political activities or the social sciences is in great danger. Many of those who foresaw their peril have fled the country to Madrid, Rome, Paris, Mexico, and Caracas rather than live with the threats of kidnapping and penury. Many of those that naively resisted to runaway were kidnapped. Even Brazil, in spite of its right wing military dictatorship has become a paradise compare with Argentina´s nightmare. Anti-semitism in Argentina has been a permanent threat since the 1920´s. Although no jew dared to wear the yamaka before the coup, when the military discovered that a few jews were financially connected with the leftist guerrilla, anti-semitism revived to such a degree that many Jews had to leave the country.
To figure out what these actual fascist dictatorships are looking for we have to deal with a strange vocabulary. Videla calls “stable modern democracy” what Pinochet baptized as an “authoritarian democracy”. The common meaning of both labels is that the role of the Armed Forces will be guaranteed and perpetuated. In the case of Argentina, unlike Chile or Uruguay, a political process “open to all sectors except the terrorists and the corrupt” has been promised since almost the very beginning of the dictatorship without yet being accomplished. Of course, the terroristic military-men are the only ones able to judge who is a terrorist and who is corrupt. In fact, Economic Minister Martínez de Hoz, the most representative member of the oligarchy, admitted after being challenged by Amnesty International at a recent Conference of the International Monetary Fund held in San Francisco that, prior to the military coup, businessmen have financed a right-wing para-military terrorist organization. This last statement speaks for itself, or as we used to say in our countries “a confesión de parte relevo de prueba”. After what the Economic Minister publicly acknowledged, it remains to be asked who in this new modern democracy is qualified to decide who is not corrupt and who is not a terrorist.
In light of the tragic condition of the Argentine people, I as a representative of the Argentine Radical Civic Union party in voluntary exile, ask my countrymen and citizens of other Latin American countries living abroad to join forces to organize a broad political front of resistance, and to the people of this country –lovers of peace, freedom and human rights—I ask the solidarity to fight from wherever they happen to be and from whatever position they might hold, against the Argentine fascist dictatorship and its international allies until their final defeat.
Readers interested in additional information about the Argentine dictatorship may write: The Committee for Constitutional and Human Rights in Argentina, Box 234, Station A, Richmond, CA 94808-
Source: Minnesota Daily, vol.80, n. 137 and 138, Wednesday March 28, and Thursday March 29, 1979; and Student Life (St. Louis, Missouri), Friday February 9, 1979, page 7
Argentina: prey to terrorists of the left and the right (Student Life, Friday, February 16, 1979, page 15)
by Mario P. Gómez
Some people believe in UFO´s, some believe in astrology, some in quack doctors, Mr. Saguier believes in what he wrote in the Student Life issue of February 9, and some candid readers will believe his story. But all readers will agree with me that no rational argument or incontrovertible evidence presented by their opponents will make them believe otherwise. They want to believe their fantasies, and their fantasies are their reality. Putting things out of context, adding a couple of zeros here and there, injecting properly selected citations from reputable sources make their stories more believable by a candid audience.
Of course one can always trace any historical event down to Adam and Eve. But there are more immediate historical facts that can and should be used to explain more rationally the course of recent history. The facts are that Argentina, a highly educated, urban and prosperous country, even using European standards, was chosen in the late 1960s as a juicy target for the newly developed tactics of urban guerrilla. Properly trained in Algeria and Cuba by their own admission, very well financed by Peron and international groups with headquarters in Paris, where Cortazar was one of their intellectual mentors, they struck for the first time early in the 1970, kidnapping and eventually killing former President Aramburu, head of the Argentine People´s Union. By then Aramburu was organizing a political coalition, including the Peronists, to force the military government of Ongania to hold general elections.
Two main guerrilla groups were operating the Trotzkiite ERP (Revolutionary Peoples Army) very small (a few hundreds) and well organized, and the Montoneros –directly allied with the Peronists-nationalist and anti-Semite. The latter could be traced back to the Nazi sympathizing Nationalist Alliance of the late 1930 and 40s, and to the Tacuaras of the early 1960s.
During 1971 and 1972, the number of indiscriminate killings, kidnappings, bank robberies, increased manifold. Their targets were American diplomats, union leaders, politicians, military, judges, lawyers, etc. No segment of the population was free from their attacks and intimidation. Never before since the frontier days had Argentina seen such level of violence, such disregard for human life. The tragic paradox was that in the name of the Argentine people, a handful of terrorists, less than a thousand by 1972, committed every atrocity they wished without ever gaining support from the people they claimed to defend. The truth was that they were all of high middle or upper class origin, mostly college students or white-collar employees. Not a single incident has ever been reported where a blue-collar worker participated, or was killed as a member of terrorist groups. The vast majority of the Argentine people did not approve the urban guerrillas and repudiated the wave of terror and assasinations. On the other hand, there were many people afraid, especially among politicians who did not dare to criticize the terrorists publicly. Many politicians went as far as saying that the guerrilla violence was the consequence of having the military in government.
Late in 1972, President Lanusse (a general) appointed Dr. Mor Roig as Minister of the Interior to organize the transition from military to civilian government (Dr. Mor Roig belonged to Mr. Saguier´s Radical Civic Union) and was later assassinated by the terrorists during Peron´s government.
Free elections were held in March 1973. The Peronists won with Dr. Campora as presidential candidate. Peron himself had been banned by the military. The Radicals were runners-up with about 24 percent of the ballots. They pledged support to the Peronist government and lived up to their pledge till the very end.
Several well known leftists with terrorists connections were either elected to provincial governments or were appointed to important cabinet or administrative positions. Campora was sworn in on May 25, 1973. That same day a couple hundred terrorists were freed by the new government. Most of them were eventually jailed again, or killed in new terrorist activities.
Late in June 1973, when Peron returned from exile in Spain, with Campora as President, the first confrontation between opposing leftists and rightists groups within the Peronists took place. It happened near Ezeiza International Airport. The fight lasted all night and several hundred people were killed. It did not matter who was right or wrong. The politicians, including Mr. Saguier´s Radicals chose to ignore the event in order not to spoil their honeymoon with Peron.
In July 1973, Peron kicked President Campora out of office. A puppet president was installed for the interim period after which new elections were held. This time Peron obtained around 60 percent of the votes. The Radicals were second again. They had hoped to get one of their men, possibly Balbin, in the ticket with Peron, but Isabel Peron ran for vice-president. The two years that followed, Mr. Saguier´s opinions not withstanding, were the darkest in Argentine history in at least a century. The Montoneros, now with powerful friends in government, and the ERP, continued with the assassinations, robberies and kidnappings (although now the military were not in power). Within the Peronist party the internal struggle between leftists and rightists acquired bloodier proportions. Corruption permeated every branch and level of the government. Even witchcraft was practiced at the highest levels. The Radicals consented with their silence. By March 1976, Argentina was on the verge of total chaos. The Congress, of which the Radicals were part, had continually avoided dealing with the most critical issues by not passing the bills necessary for constitutional solutions to the problems that were crippling the Nation. Not since the France of Vichy had a country been led, with few exceptions, by such a group of incompetent, corrupt and cowardly politicians.
The two most critical issues not tackled by Congress were the modification of the penal laws to have terrorists judged by military tribunals and the impeachment of Isabel Peron and her replacement by Peronist Senator Luder, who was constitutionally in line to succeed the president. During several months, even to the very last minute, the military were begging the politicians to act to save the country, but they stood still, silent and frightened. (I should point out that the terrorists who were judged by ordinary tribunals, were either set free or given very light sentences. Judges were threatened and killed). Meanwhile the terrorists continued with their attacks, even daring to challenge the Army by surprise –attacking several of their barracks. Although badly beaten most of the time, they kept trying --even using high school age recruits. Most of them were on drugs; many committed suicide by taking cyanide before being caught. The ERP terrorists occupied some forested areas in N.W. Argentina, trying to emulate Castro´s Sierra Maestra and hoping to win enough support for their “war of liberation” to make a presentation for recognition at the U.N.
Political strikes were called almost daily by many unions to request unrealistic pay rises, solely justified by a mushrooming inflation. Industry and commerce were almost paralyzed. Hoarding by retailers and consumers and financial speculation were the only business activities remaining.
The rate of inflation reached 49 per cent in February, and 55 per cent in March 1976. The politicians remained silent and immobile. Reluctantly, on March 26th, the military, without firing a single shot, filled the vacuum left by the politicians, including the Radicals, who have betrayed the mandate of the people, and who were unable to act when they had the power, and afraid to fight when they were about to lose it. Now they cry from 8000 miles away¡
The economic recovery of Argentina in less than three years has been remarkable. Although inflation is still a problem, eight to ten per cent per month a system of price and salary indexing has minimized its trade surplus, and unemployment is down to almost negligible levels. Some activities like fish processing even have severe labor shortages. Politically, despite Mr. Saguier´s attempt to ignore the issue, all actions by the military government after March 1976 should be judged against a scenario where a country is fighting a bloody and dirty war against an enemy who had all the time and place options in his hands. In less than two years they were militarily and politically destroyed. But the fighting was heavy and, because of the nature of the war, the battlefields were never well defined. Many innocent bystanders were killed by both sides, and the quick and radical surgery needed, put many uncommitted people on the wrong side of the fence. But that is not a problem of human rights. It is a problem of a dirty war being fought by a country to preserve its independence by means of its legal armed forces.
The blame for that war cannot be put on the military who finished it, with a remarkably low number of casualties, but on the terrorists who started it, and on the politicians who, either consented to it, or were too afraid to act politically to avoid it. And avoiding the final confrontation was still possible when Mr. Saguier´s Party was in Congress. After all, drawing a parallel with other wars, no responsible American citizen could blame the American military and the U.S. Government for violating the human rights of the Japanese or German women, pregnant or not, and children because they bombed Hamburg or Hiroshima, killing thousands of them. I would say the guilt should be placed where it belonged, on the incompetent politicians like Chamberlain, the corrupt politicians like Laval and, mainly, on those who started it –the German and Japanese governments.
So far as the actual figures cited by Mr. Saguier they are grossly exaggerated, and with a purpose, to shock the candid American. For instance, he fails to mention, or does not honestly know, that many missing persons are former terrorists, who betrayed their cause, turned themselves in, and had to be protected from the vengeful ire of the terrorists. But of course, in this respect, neither he nor I can actually prove their points. Only future historians will ever be able to uncover the whole truth.
In the meantime, Argentine politicians, like the last Caliph of Granada, cry like women for what they were not able to defend like men. Having lost the political and military battles in their own country, they hope to beat the Argentine government in the international battle of words and tears. That reminds me of a story I was told many years ago, about the Ku Klux Klansmen crying foul, when the black man they had buried to his neck, bit the tail of the lion they had set loose.
P.S. Mr. Saguier´s comments on the Argentine.-Chilean incident are so absurd they deserve a special footnote. Everybody knows that human rights are violated by using hand guns, not airplanes, tanks and missiles. Argentina is a well known producer and exporter of small fire arms (including military rifles, machine guns and tactical rockets.) Hence, obviously Argentina did not need to “assume a border conflict” with Chile “to rearm their terroristic bureaucracies”. The truth is that a real conflict existed. The interested reader can write to none other than Pope John Paul II, whose role was crucial in avoiding military confrontation. All other of Mr. Saguier´s truths are like this.
(Source: Student Life, Friday, February 16, 1979, page 15)
La Nueva Mazorca Fascista y sus Nuevos Encubridores (Denuncia, n.52, Junio 1980)
Estimado Dr. Balbín:
Con gran dolor de correligionario herido me he decidido a escribirle esta carta abierta con motivo de los conceptos por Ud. vertidos en la publicación española Cambio 16 el día 27 de abril del corriente año. Le escribo ella con un profundo dolor pues he tenido siempre hacia su persona como Vd. bien sabe admiración y respeto. Sin embargo, el tenor de los conceptos por Ud. emitidos con relación a un tema vital para el futuro de la patria y nuestro pueblo me mueven a reconsiderar de hoy en mas mi actitud hacia Ud.
En efecto, la primera parte de sus declaraciones las encuentro imbuidas de un halo de claudicación indigno de la tradición republicana y democrática de la Unión Cívica Radical. Cuando Ud. enfáticamente manifiesta que “la violencia casi ha desaparecido de la Argentina”, está Ud. acaso manifestando Dr. Balbín que la desaparición o muerte de miles de compatriotas y entre ellos centenares de correligionarios a manos de la mazorca fascista (léase Fuerzas Armadas Argentinas) no es violencia actual y presente? ¿Cree Vd. acaso que los Radicales que nos hemos visto forzados a optar por el exilio a fuer de ser fácil bocado de la canalla mazorquera habremos de olvidar a nuestros correligionarios y compatriotas desaparecidos? ¿Qué es lo que Vd. pretende insinuar cuando se expresa con tono indulgente acerca del “problema de los detenidos cuyos plazos de arresto se han excedido”? ¿Es acaso sólo exceso el arrestar a un ciudadano por encima del término establecido por la Ley? ¿No configura ello un abuso de autoridad y otros delitos mayores penados por la Constitución Nacional que Ud. como Radical tantas veces exigiera de los mazorqueros de turno?
Y lo más grave de sus expresiones que no consienten perdón de argentino alguno es aquello de que “creo que los desaparecidos están muertos”. ¿Por qué ese afán suyo Dr. Balbín por otorgar a las autoridades mazorqueras un bill de indemnidad futura al expresar la frase aparentemente neutra de que “creo que los desaparecidos han muerto”? ¿Acaso vió Vd. los cadáveres de los compatriotas desaparecidos? ¿O es que por ventura fue Vd. informado por alguna de las autoridades mazorqueras del resultado final de las desapariciones? ¿Y si ello es así Dr. Balbín no cree que es su deber indicar a los compatriotas y correligionarios exilados el nombre y apellido de quién le informó de semejante holocausto? ¿O es que acaso los desaparecidos murieron de muerte natural? ¿Y si no murieron de muerte natural no cree Vd. Dr. Balbín que lo que Vd. debiera afirmar no es la creencia de que los desaparecidos están muertos mas si la de que los han muerto o, en otras palabras, asesinado? ¿No cree Vd. Dr. Balbín que el dejar librado el imperativo de una investigación a la evasiva frase de que “alguna vez se tendrá que aclarar” trae implícita la posibilidad de que los asesinos jamás sean castigados?
Ante tamaña ignominia acumulada, ¿no cree Vd. Dr. Balbín que se impone una campaña nacional e internacional para desenmascarar a la nueva Mazorca Fascista? ¿Por qué, entonces, Dr. Balbín su confesado interés por “terminar con las campañas que se transforman en armas políticas”? ¿Por qué Dr. Balbín su interés por querer que a nuestros seres queridos los lloremos en silencio sin jamás alzar nuestra voz en un justo reclamo? ¿Por qué pretende Vd. Dr. Balbín acusar a quienquiera haya osado u ose perseverar en la búsqueda de sus correligionarios, parientes y amigos desaparecidos de revanchista? ¿No cree Ud. Dr. Balbín que al acusar de revanchista a quienes hemos de una forma u otra denunciado los crímenes de la Junta Militar lo erige a Vd. en cómplice encubridor del genocidio más atroz cometido en el Cono Sur de América Latina desde los tiempos de la Guerra de la Triple Infamia? ¿O es que, por ventura pretende Ud. Dr. Balbín reconstruir la Democracia Argentina encubriendo homicidas?
Porque firmemente creo que sus declaraciones públicas han incurrido en excesos intolerables en quien inviste la Presidencia del Comité Nacional de la Unión Cívica Radical es que le reclamo como humilde militante de dicha agrupación histórica una inmediata rectificación, o de lo contrario se someta Vd. a un tribunal de disciplina partidario.
Sin otro particular, le saluda
Eduardo R. Saguier
Department of History
Washington University
St. Louis, Mo 63130
Fuente: Denuncia (Nueva York), n.52, Junio 1980
Servant of repressive regime slinks into town (The Daily Cardinal, v.XC, n.47, Thursday, October 30, 1980
By Mary Nemick of the Cardinal Staff
A controversial figure is paying a clandestine visit to Madison with the intent of “comparing law programs”.
The International Studies Department welcomed Dr. Lucas Lennon and his entourage to Madison Wednesday, unbeknownst to the Madison community.
Lennon, chancellor of the National University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is scheduled to “meet with different people on campus”, according to Margaret Skinner, head of foreign visitors program for the International Studies Department.
Argentina, which has proved to have one of the most repressive governments in the world, has been the subject of much reproach by the U.S. government. Kidnapping, torture and murder by the Argentine government have been brought to national attention, along with the phenomenon of after being recognized as political leftists. At least 5,000 people are missing and presumed dead at the hand of the military government of Jorge Videla, according to the New York Times.
Lennon, who at one time was a law professor at the Catholic University of Buenos Aires, contributed to the outrage of academic suppression at the National University.
The Sociology and Psychology Departments at the University were eliminated “due to their controversial and political nature”, said Eduardo Saguier, a graduate student here and former student of Lennon´s at the Catholic University.
Though Saguier described Lennon as a good professor and nice man, he represents the most cruel and repressive government today.
“He is responsible in a great degree for the lack of academic freedoms at the National University”, said Saguier.
Saguier left his country after being arrested several times for being politically active and asking for the released of the many students and professors who were jailed because of defending their rights. Though Saguier could return to Argentina he said he is considered a political enemy, and would fear for his life.
Skinner said she would not comment on Lennon´s visit because she did not want to see a demonstration against Lennon´s presence on campus.
Lennon is schedules to meet with UW System Pres. Robert O´Neil at 9:15 a.m. and Orrin Helstad, Dean of the Law School, sometime during the day.
“I don´t have any particular interest in Dr. Lennon”, said Helstad. “He is a representative of a foreign university and I think we will be cordial”.
The University community must question the reason that a representative of a fascist government such as Argentina should be welcomed to the campus.
Saguier said he believes the Argentinian government is so isolated that it is looking for help laundering its image by having good relations with foreign universities.
“The visit of this man is not honoring this University”, Saguier said.
Source: The Daily Cardinal, v.XC, n.47, Thursday, October 30, 1980